


before the otherness came.

by reygrets



Series: intersecting infinity (non-smut reylo one shots) [2]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, F/M, Kylo ' not now boner ' Ren, Rey as a Knight of Ren, he just loves her a lot okay
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-09
Updated: 2020-01-09
Packaged: 2021-02-27 14:27:51
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,195
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22188616
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/reygrets/pseuds/reygrets
Summary: undercover, but not really.
Relationships: Kylo Ren/Rey, Rey/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren
Series: intersecting infinity (non-smut reylo one shots) [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1597219
Comments: 3
Kudos: 56





	before the otherness came.

“This is a _stupid_ plan,” 

  
“Do you have a better one?”

  
The silence to follow answers for her, and Rey’s cowed by the knowing, tired stare of the general. She has a thousand other reasons why this clearly will not work, but none of them hold up against the fact of the matter, which is, they’re screwed either way. 

  
At least with this, Rey can buy them some time, or something. Maybe find out some crucial information that she can then pass on before she inevitably _dies_.

  
She sheds the modest grey, beige and brown of her jedi attire, and eyes the black tunic, cowl, leggings and cloak that’s meant to replace it. All in all, its a bleak outfit – not that she’s particularly gifted by way of fashion – and Rey can only think on how impractical it would have been in the heat of the desert.

  
Despite Leia’s reassurance that the Knights weren’t frequented by visits from their Master, Snoke’s death hangs like a fog of disquieted uncertainty, there was no way of knowing the location of her soon to be brothers-in-arms with any degree of absolution. 

  
The hum of her shuttle’s hyperdrive, a stolen First Order vessel, is the only sound as she lets it follow the pre-programmed flight path back to _The Supremacy_ – Rey’s mastered the art of locking down their bond, she’s so effective with it, in fact, that she’s managed to disguise and warp the shape of her force signature entirely. It takes all her focus, though, and leaves her vulnerable elsewhere. A fact she’s made aware of by her lingering scavenger senses screaming at her to be wise, to watch and wait instead of barricade herself within the walls of her body. 

  
She can only vaguely sense him, Kylo Ren, the Supreme Leader a phantom clad in the darkest armor of his new mantle, mask-less, and yet as unreadable as if he’d continued to wear it. 

  
Rey blends in well enough; there’s seven knights in total, and, despite her moral compass pointing far, far away from this; she kills one of the smaller-females, and strips her memories, her cadence, and her identity before the light fades from her eyes.

  
Rey cries herself to sleep that night.

  
The first few days are nondescript; the Knights, as a whole, don’t communicate beyond their grunts of acquiescence when given an order ( either that, or she’d been made long ago and they were playing along for whatever reason – paranoia gnaws at her gut hourly. )

  
After she nears a week in their fold, mask whirring and clicking whenever she dared so much as breath — she senses him nearing. She senses Kylo Ren. 

  
Rey’s in the sparring hall, dueling with her saberstaff ( red, red, red - it hums angrily, whereas the cool yellow of her own remained back with the resistance. ) she’s wheezing heavily, exhaustion stinging her arms at the unfamiliar weight of moving with this much clothing on. 

  
She can feel his stare, cold, and distant from the far side of the room; Rey thinks his impassive posturing can only be equated to him not knowing who she was.

  
Until he dismisses everyone but her. 

  
And Rey’s heart falls straight through the durasteel floor.

  
She anticipates pain, perhaps he’d ignite his saber and cut her to ribbons. 

  
What she had _not_ expected, was for him to crush the holocams in the four corners of the room, and flick his wrist to lock the doors immediately thereafter.

  
She’s _definitely_ going to die. 

  
Kylo closes the gap between them with a feline grace at odds with his stature; Rey holds her chin up, knowing that the mask then, guarded her from sharing the fear in her eyes. ( she sees why he wore one, as his own betray so, so much when looking down at her ).

  
“Take it off,” Softly, his gloved hand traces that hard, wolfish shape of its snout, the machinations turning her ragged breath, into a hiss. 

  
Rey isn’t quite sure why she does it, maybe he wants the pleasure of watching her as he kills her — no, that wasn’t like him, for all his bitter wherewithal he was little more than brittle bones held aloft by a pain deeper than any sea. It broke her heart to know that he’d weaponized it, instead of grown stronger, he let his past die, let it make him weak. 

  
Its not his fault, surely, but Rey wouldn’t have been able to hate him even if it were. 

  
She’s disarmed by Ben, wholly and entirely, and knows her doom won’t be by the sting of his blade, but by the lips that press with the gentleness of a summer breeze, against her own. 

  
“You’re beautiful, like this,” Kylo murmurs, dark eyes flickering with a broken need across her face – he wants her, and Rey’s only made aware of this by their bond, which she’s failed to keep as tightly shut, what with the warmth of his palm bleeding through his glove and heating her, soul deep. 

  
He steps back, gaze still roving, wanting, but its slower, and she feels on display for him despite wearing significantly more clothing than he’s ever seen her in. Rey fidgets in place, the weight of his ardor blurring the air into something that’s heat and wet and want, with a darkness churning through its belly, a long forgotten beast that’s been woken by their proximity.

  
“When I wanted you to join me, Rey,” He shakes his head, a sad smile on his pretty red lips, a noose around her neck, “I didn’t mean like this … deception, death… all for what?” Kylo tips her chin back, and kisses her forehead. This softness of his did not belong here, not in the heart of a warmachine. 

  
“—for information that I would have freely given you? There’s nothing you could ask of me, ask from me, that I wouldn’t have done, wouldn’t have told you. I wanted to build something beautiful from all this ruin … and I knew I could only do that with you. I am half, without you, Rey.. ” 

  
She’s gone soft where she’d pretended to be a stalwart Jedi, nothing inconspicuous about how her hearts aching, singing to his like it knows ( it does, the traitorous thing ), “Ben…” She’s so, so close to telling him yes, to stop fighting this pull of an unseen, impossible gravity. 

  
Rey’s spent her life trying to survive, and he’s offering her the chance to just be. 

  
He kisses her before she can answer.

  
He kisses her, but it tastes like goodbye. 

  
She’s not ready to be left again. Not ready for the long lonely nights that have stripped her of all the scars she’d built up on Jakku – she’d known loneliness because it was all she’d ever had. This was different, because she had never been two. 

  
“Don’t leave me.” Rey hates it. Her voice breaks and the words are born without a second of mental labor, they’re falling, fast and hard and irrevocably. There’s no use in pretending. No use in arguing with fate.

  
He is hers, and she is his, and a far away sound seals it when they kiss, it tastes like forever. 


End file.
